He has owned the spring since 1975 and has been selling to water bottling companies since 1988. He pipes water that bubbles from the spring to a 40,000 gallon holding tank. He isn’t permitted to pump water from underground, and he can sell only the excess capacity not required to meet demand from a nearby subdivision.

Colton said most of the bottlers he sells to pay less than a penny a gallon.

That’s why he was upset to learn that a legislative panel voted Friday to recommend imposing a nickel-a-gallon fee on water sold in bulk.

Colton could have to pay $100,000 to $200,000 a month based on the number of gallons he sells.

“That would probably put me out of business,” Colton said. He complained that lawmakers hadn’t contacted him to ask about the effect of such a fee before voting. Colton operates the biggest, but not the only water-selling operation in Vermont.

Senate Finance Chairman Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden, made the case for proposing to add the new water fee to a bill that would make a host of routine adjustments to charges to professions such as barbers, to corporate fees, to the surcharges for crime victim funds, to fees for taxi meters and for liquor permits.

Ashe argued the state should be getting something for the millions of gallons of water sent out of state to bottlers who turn around and charge 99 cents for a 20-ounce bottle.

“Somewhere someone is making a spectacular amount of money,” Ashe said.

All the state receives now is a $2,300 annual permit fee charged of facilities that withdraw groundwater. That fee is intended to cover the cost of a certification process.

Sen. Kevin Mullin, R-Rutland, drives by the Pristine Mountain Springs operation on his commute to and from Montpelier. He questioned how the committee could vote to impose a fee on water sales without knowing how it would impact this business.

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“Are his contracts drafted such that he can pass that nickel on, or are we putting him out of business?” Mullin posed.

Ashe promised to invite Colton to testify next week, but called for an immediate vote on the bill — including the water fee. Mullin was the lone opponent on the committee.

Justin Johnson, deputy secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, had advised the panel that the Shumlin administration “disagreed with having it in here right now.”

“We think it needs more work,” Johnson said. “We would want to understand the implications.”

Johnson noted that the municipalities and consolidated water districts would be exempt from the fee even if they sold some of their water to commercial bottling operations. Bennington sells water to out-of-state bottlers, and Colton considers the town a competitor.

Johnson called the municipal exemption an anomaly and suggested it was example of the need for more analysis of the issue: “We haven’t had enough conversation about it.”

“Everybody thinks everyone is making millions” in the water business, Colton said. He called it a highly competitive business and said he couldn’t pass on the cost of a new fee to the companies buying his water. “They will get it somewhere else.”

He said he sells to Crystal Rock with a bottle operation in New Hampshire, to Booth Bros. in Barre, and to several other bottling companies in Massachusetts and New York.

Colton said he competes by shipping 24 hours a day, seven days a week: “They can depend on me whenever they need water.”

The full Senate will take up the fee bill — with this new water provision — on Tuesday, unless Colton persuades the committee to reverse course when he testifies.

The House is unlikely to agree to the water fee without some research, House Ways and Means Chairwoman Janet Ancel, D-Calais, said Friday: “We have looked at fairly superficially in the past, so we would have to look into it.”